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Monday, February 17, 2014

Cookie Monster Macarons

COOOOOOOKIE. I made Cookie Monster Macarons! It made me extremely happy. You see, the Cookie Monster is my spirit animal. It was meant to be. Even my terrible user handle stephcookie came about because I originally started writing my blog posts as The Cookie Monster, then Steph the Cookie Monster, which was just way too long so it became stephcookie. Anyway you don't care about that. LOOK AT THESE MACARONS!

SQUEE! So ridonkulously cute. They were a total pain in the butt. Mainly because I decided to make them this weekend, which turned out to be the wettest, most disgustingly humid weekend. It was not the best idea. My first batch of macarons were a sloppy, soggy mess that looked more like alien fried eggs rather than cookie monster macs. So after wasting a day of baking, I made another batch and waiting for hours for them to dry before baking. It was so bloody humid that I think they were actually less dry after all that waiting! Luckily the husband saved the day by bringing out a fan and pointing it at the stubborn macarons, and they finally dried enough for me to pop them in the oven. Success!

It was totally worth making that second batch. I want to hug them! They're not too complicated; dark chocolate ganache filling because I wanted a dark coloured filling so it would look like Cookie Monster's mouth (I was originally inspired by these awesome Elmo macarons), and plain macaron shells tinted with blue colouring (except for the white eyes) and blue sugar crystals for a bit of texture. Ooh and tiny chocolate chip cookies wedged in between the shells. If you'd rather have a less boring macaron flavour you could replace the ganache with this cookie dough buttercream. Mmm.

The cookie monster cupcake has been around forever and I love how cute they are, but these cookie monster macarons are so me and so perfect for this blog. I'm so glad I made them! For those of you who are tempted to recreate them, I would definitely not recommend them for beginner macaron makers because piping on the extra bits for the eyes makes it tricker. To make your life easier you could just bake plain blue macaron shells and use royal icing after you've baked the shells to pipe on the eyes. But I prefer when it's all part of the macaron shell, like allmyothermacaronanimals.

So make sure you're patient if you decide to make these, rushing will only lead to alien fried egg looking things. Oh and don't pick the most ridiculously humid weather to make macarons in. It will only end in tears.

Place icing sugar in food processor and pulse for a minute to remove any lumps. Stir in almond meal and pulse for about 30 seconds to combine. (If you don’t have a processor just sift together with a fine sieve.) Sift into a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and salt (and egg white powder) in a medium mixing bowl until it reaches soft peaks. With the mixer on high speed, gradually add sugar and beat until it reaches stiff peaks.

Add meringue to your dry mixture and mix together with a spatula, quickly at first to break down the bubbles in the egg white (you really want to beat all the large bubbles out of the mixture, which is easily done by smearing the mixture on the bottom and side of the bowl with your spatula), then mix carefully as the dry mixture becomes incorporated. Place 1/3rd of a cup of the mixture in a separate bowl (you can skip this step and use royal icing to pipe on the eyes after baking the blue shells). With the remaining mixture, add blue food colouring and mix until it starts to become shiny again. Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after about 30 seconds. Mix the plain white macaron mixture to the same texture.

Place blue mixture in a piping bag with a 1cm round piping tip. Pipe circles about 3.5cm wide on your prepared trays, leaving about 3cm space around each one. Tap baking sheets carefully and firmly on the benchtop a couple times to remove any large bubbles.

Place white mixture in a piping bag with a narrower round piping tip (I used a 3mm wide tip). Set aside and allow the blue piped circles to dry for half an hour.

Sprinkle blue sugar crystals over the top of the circles, then carefully pipe two small white circles on top of HALF of the blue circles to form the eyes.

Leave to dry for about 60 mins more, until when you press the surface of one gently it does not break/stick to your finger. This will help prevent any cracking and help the feet to form on the macs.

Preheat your oven to 130-150°C (265-300°F), depending on your oven (fan-forced ovens may need to be set as low as 100°C, it really depends) . You can place the sheet of piped shells on top of an upside-down roasting tray or another baking tray, for better heat distribution.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, depending on the size of your shells. Carefully test if the base of the shell is ready by gently lifting one and if it’s still soft and sticking to the baking paper, then it needs to bake for a few minutes longer.

Remove from the oven and cool on the tray for a few minutes, then gently remove from the sheet and place on a wire rack to cool.

Use an edible ink pen or a skewer dipped into liquid food colouring to draw on eyes over the white circles.

Heat cream in a small saucepan on medium-low heat until it just comes to the boil and then pour over the chocolate. Leave for about 3 minutes to allow chocolate to melt.

Use a whisk to combine mixture until it is smooth. Chill, whisking it every 5 minutes to ensure it stays smooth, until the mixture thickens but is still pipable.

Place in a small piping bag (ziplock bags with a corner snipped off are handy for this), pipe on one of the blue bottom shells and sandwich with a top shell that has eyes, with a cookie wedged in the middle. Repeat with remaining shells.

Chill macarons in an airtight container overnight to allow flavour to mature. Serve at room temperature.

love that gif. its like cookie monster meets pacman! love this concept steph. and yes you braved the humidity to bake.. haha now that deserves a pat on the back in itself! me love. me want cookie nowwwww!

You slay me! These are FRIGGIN ADORABLE! And that last gif?! *foaming at the mouth*

I'm going to have to try to make these for my director's farewell do. She's obsessed with Cookie Monster (she used to make me watch a CM video every morning when we were on a project together, just to set the tone, apparently) and would absolutely bawl her eyes out at these.

You're a goddess. A GODDESS I TELL YOU! Yes, sorry about the caps, but they were necessary to show you exactly how much I love you right now.

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